placenamesCoolboy
An Cúl Buí
Estate records, a Victorian house commission and a rebuilt road trace different periods of Coolboy’s history north of Letterkenny.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- An Cúl Buí · Irish · main form · validated name
- Coolboy · English · main form
Place & story
Land recorded on paper
Coolboy appears among the townlands in an estate map book acquired by Donegal County Archives. The council described the volume as undated, but probably from the middle of the nineteenth century. Its illustrated maps recorded tenants and their parcels on Colonel Henry Vaughan Brooke’s estate, alongside neighbouring Ballaghderg, Curraghlea and Illistrin. They preserve evidence of how this landscape was divided and occupied before the later transformation of its roads. [2]
A house commission in 1896
A more specific building project is recorded in the Irish Architectural Archive’s Dictionary of Irish Architects. In 1896, M. Fitzgerald, an architect working in Letterkenny, designed a house at Coolboy for Miss Terrance. The entry cites the Irish Builder of 15 July that year. The brief record establishes both a named client and a local designer, although it supplies no description of the completed building. [3]
Replacing the Blue Banks bends
The N 56 between Coolboy and Kilmacrennan underwent a substantial realignment in 2018–19. The 3.1-kilometre project replaced the difficult Blue Banks bends with a wider carriageway and added shared walking and cycling paths on both sides. Water mains were laid alongside the road as part of the same programme. The scheme’s official opening was arranged for 7 October 2019, following eighteen months of construction. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Coolboy. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Donegal Community in Touch, issue 8: acquisitions in the Archives, p. 13 · Donegal County Council
- Dictionary of Irish Architects: Fitzgerald, M. · Irish Architectural Archive
- Official opening of €18.7m N56 Coolboy to Kilmacrennan Scheme · Transport Infrastructure Ireland, reproduced by BAM
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.